Craze for the four-player game known as guandan may lead to the formation of cliques, Communist party warns

As recently as last year, Chinese state media was hailing guandan as the card game that “can get you a promotion in China”.

The country was holding open tournaments, and workers were encouraged to use it as a social and professional networking tool.

Guandan, or “throwing eggs”, is a four-person, two-team game of strategy. It has been around for decades, beginning in Jiangsu province, and was a favoured pastime of former leader Deng Xiaoping.

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But now it appears to have fallen out of favour with the highly interventionist ruling Communist party – being blamed for encouraging a “passive attitude” towards work, and encouraging the formation of cliques among party cadres.

A recent run of articles in the state-run Beijing Youth Daily described guandan as intoxicating and “decadent”, warning that it was “time to control the trend of ‘laying flat’ among all guandan players”. Laying flat (tangping in Chinese) is the term given to a social trend among young people who are rejecting high-pressure jobs for an easier lifestyle, which has alarmed authorities.

    • enkersEnglish
      9•3 months ago

      Oh, it’s basically the same as Asshole (or Janitor, as my grandmother called it) but with teams, a definite goal, and a few more valid card combinations. One is obviously a derivative. Now I wonder which came first.

      Edit: And to answer my own question:

      It is a Westernized version of Chinese climbing card games[5] such as Zheng Shangyou, Tien Len in Vietnam and the Japanese Daifugō.[1]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_(card_game)